


Ghosts of the past

by Ozpin_Lover_MP



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 05:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17037119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ozpin_Lover_MP/pseuds/Ozpin_Lover_MP
Summary: Yuri finds Victor skating to an incredibly sad piece of music late at night. What is going on?This fic deals with Victor's tragic backstory.





	Ghosts of the past

**Author's Note:**

> -This takes place post season 1, when they are living together in St Peterborough.   
> -TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of past child abuse (nothing graphic)

…  
It was eleven o'clock at night when Yuri entered the rink. It was unlocked, indicating that either the last person to leave had forgotten or someone was still practising. 

Yuri was looking for Victor. He hadn’t seen Victor since practice this morning and was starting to worry.

Victor had been at their house at lunchtime though, that much was clear. Victor always forgot to put away his dishes (not that Yuri minded), and the post box had been emptied. 

He wasn’t responding to any texts, though. That’s what really worried Yuri.

What if something had happened? Surely if Victor had taken a bad fall or something he would have called him? 

As Yuri walked through the changing rooms, he could already hear music. He felt relief bloom in his chest. Victor was probably just still skating. 

Yuri walked up to the edge of the rink and breathed a sigh of relief. There Victor was, the true definition of elegance and grace, skating smoothly across the ice. 

It wasn’t a piece that Yuri recognised; it definitely wasn't something that Victor was planning on using in either the short or technical programs for the Nationals in a few months time. 

It was beautiful though; Victor danced to it with a familiarity that suggested he had done so many times before. It was also sad; definitely a minor key. Yuri didn’t think that he had ever heard this music before. 

The notes plonked unsteadily up and down, almost as if the composer was crying. Victor’s steps matched the notes exactly, suggesting the same sadness. 

Yuri felt his eyes start to well up. It was a piece that suggested grief; a deep loss. Victor’s dance only enhanced that. Why was he skating to this? Why did he know it so well? 

As Victor skated a little closer, Yuri realised that Victor was crying. Crying! Yuri had only ever seen Victor cry once, when he had misunderstood Yuri, and thought that Yuri wanted them to break up. Yuri still cringed at the memory. 

But what had happened? Had Makkachin fallen ill? No, Yuri had seen Makkachin barely an hour ago, when he had left the house. Maybe something had happened to one of their friends? But if so, why hadn’t Yuri heard about it? Maybe someone in Victor’s family was ill? What if someone in Victor’s family had died? 

Yuri didn’t know much about Victor’s family. He knew that Victor’s mum had died when Victor was ten, but he knew nothing of his father. The sole time Yuri had asked about him, Victor’s look of disgust had been enough to shut him up. 

Yuri had skyped called Abrielle that one time though, Victor’s cousin. Maybe something had happened to her? 

Suddenly, Victor wobbled. Yuri held his breath for a second. Victor couldn’t seem to regain his balance after that. Perhaps because he was crying, and shaking too much. 

Victor started to speed up, presumably for a jump. A triple axel by the look of things. 

Then, the unthinkable happened. One skate caught on the other, and Victor fell. 

Yuri didn’t think that he’d ever seen him fall before. Not properly, anyhow. The worst was that Victor didn’t even get up. He just sat there, sobbing. 

“Victor!” Yuri yelled, running onto the rink, not caring that he was wearing trainers and not skates. He ran and skidded onto his knees. 

“Yuri,” Victor whispered, trying to wipe his tears on his hand.

“Are you hurt?” Yuri asked, lifting a hand to the side of his face. 

Victor batted his hand away, then wiped his eyes again, shaking his head. 

“What’s wrong? Has something awful happened?” Yuri asked. 

Victor shook his head again, coughing back more sobs. “It’s nothing, it’s nothing,” 

“Vitya…” Yuri whispered. “If it makes you cry then it’s obviously not nothing,”

Victor simply turned away from Yuri and tried to take deep breaths, covering his face with his hand. A few moments later, Victor was barely crying anymore. Yuri was mildly impressed, but more concerned, about how little time it took for Victor to get his emotions under control. If there was one thing he’d learned from his therapist, it was that suppressing your emotions wasn’t healthy. 

“Victor,” he whispered, “It’s ok to cry,” 

Victor shook his head. “I’m fine.” He wiped his eyes one last time on his sleeve. He had actually stopped crying now. “Let’s just go home,” 

Yuri helped him up, and they wandered off the ice. While Victor sorted out his skates, Yuri went and fetched the cd. The case was in Russian, and although Yuri was learning it, he couldn’t decipher the calligraphy on the front. No clues there. 

Once they were outside in the cool evening air, Yuri gently put his hand on Victor's shoulder. 

“I’m fine Yuri,” Victor gave him a smile. One of his false, smile-for-the-press smiles. 

Yuri was almost offended that Victor actually believed that he could fall for that. Even before he had met Victor, Yuri had known the difference. The posters with his real smile had been few and far inbetween, and Yuri had cherished every one of them. And in person, the difference was even more pronounced. Yuri could write a whole essay on the way that Victor’s eyes lit up when he was happy, the way the edges creased ever so slightly, the way that he would shake his hair out of his eyes for a few seconds… his “press” smile had none of that. 

“- I just got caught up in the music,” Victor continued. 

“Why did you have the music on in the first place?” Yuri asked, looking up at him. 

Victor looked away. “It is an old piece, I choreographed it years ago,” 

Yuri sighed through his nose. That didn’t answer his question. Still, he stopped pressing. He didn’t want to make Victor uncomfortable, and in any case, they were out in public. It wouldn’t do to make a scene. 

Once they got home, Victor asked if they could watch a movie. Usually, Yuri would have said no, but after what he had just seen, he relented. Victor probably wanted to take his mind off whatever it was that was bothering him. 

Victor curled up on the sofa, and Yuri gently leant on him, offering silent support. Makkachin, also sensing Victor’s sadness, joined them, sitting against Victor’s other side. 

They were only a part way throwing the movie when Yuri glances up at Victor and saw that more tears were running down Victor’s face. 

Yuri pauses the movie. “Vitya?” He mumbled, sitting up properly. 

Victor looked away. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. 

“What for?” Yuri asked. 

“Crying! I’m sorry, I’m trying to stop,” Victor managed through his tears. He was crying into his wrists again. 

“Someone special once told me that crying doesn’t make you weak, it shows that you are strong,” Yuri gently placed a hand behind Victor’s head, encouraging him to look at him. Then he opened his arms wide. “Hug?” he offered. 

Victor nodded, and suddenly pushed himself forward into Yuri. Victor clung to him desperately, burying his head on his shoulder. 

Yuri rubbed calming circles on his back. “It’s always ok to cry,” to Yuri mumbled into Victor’s hair. “You don’t have to feel bad about that.” 

Movie abandoned, Yuri let Victor cry onto his shoulder for a good twenty minutes. Slowly Victor’s sobs started to lessen, and he started to breath more slowly. 

“Feeling a bit better now?” Yuri asked. 

Victor nodded. 

“See, sometimes it’s better to just have a good cry. Do you want to talk about whatever is bothering you now?” Yuri mumbled. 

Victor sighed looking away. Slowly but surely, he reached into his pocket and pulled out two pieces of folded paper. He handed them to Yuri. 

Yuri took the first one. It seemed to be some sort of formal letter.

It read: 

Re: Disciplinary hearing regarding Rochester Warf 

Dear Mr. Nikiforov;

The St Petersburg court has received a charge based upon a written complaint against Rochester Warf alleging child abuse and neglect during the years of 1983-2002 towards Victor Nikiforov (yourself). 

It is our understanding that you were a victim of these incidents. This letter is to notify you that the Court requests your presence at a hearing involving this to be held on - 

Yuri stopped reading. “Oh, Victor-” he whispered, running a hand through Victor’s hair. “What happened?” 

“Rochester is my father,” Victor’s voice was muffled by Yuri’s top. “One of his rivals business rivals wants to pull him down by getting him imprisoned. Also, the neighbours, who were originally paid off, have given back the money and admitted everything to the court,” 

“Oh Vitya,” Yuri hugged him again, burying his face onto Victor’s shoulder. 

“The- the other one is worse,” Victor mumbled. 

“What?” Yuri asked. 

“Read the other paper,” Victor whispered. 

Yuri opened it. He gasped and put a hand to his mouth. This one was in Russian, but he could understand a lot of the words. 

“Isn’t this just hate-mail?” Yuri said, scanning the page. “How did you even get it? The agency sorts all of our fan mail and just sends us the best ones. There’s no way they would have let this through,” 

Victor shook his head. “It’s from my father,” 

The was a pause. 

“It’s mostly just threats about what he’ll do if I reveal anything to the court,” Victor mumbled. 

Yuri winced. He may not be a fluent Russian speaker, but he understood the word “kill” and multiple rude slurs. “Don’t listen to him. He can’t do anything, apart from anything else the whole ice-skating training center has really good security since we’re celebrities and all,” 

Victor nodded into Yuri’s shoulder. He started to shake again a little. 

“It’s ok,” Yuri mumbled into his hair, “you’re safe,” 

“Thank you,” Victor mumbled. 

They sat in silence for a few minutes, enjoying each other’s presence. 

“You don’t… think any less of me?” Victor asked quietly. 

“What? Because your father was a piece of sh!t, as Yurio would say? No, of course not!” Yuri replied softly. “I would never judge you by another’s actions,” 

They sat there for a few more minutes. 

“It wasn’t that bad,” Victor murmured, turning his face so that Yuri would be able to hear him properly. “I know of others who had it worse. My father was all words… he hardly ever hit me.” 

Yuri’s grip around Victor tightened.

“Is it ok if I… tell you more?” Victor asked, “it’s just… all these memories keep flashing through my mind…” 

“Of course, Vitya,” Yuri mumbled, “whatever helps,” 

They sat there for a few more moments. 

“The dance… I choreographed it when I was ten,” Victor mumbled. “Just after my mother died. It’s not hard… pretty pathetic that I can’t do it without falling over,” 

Yuri shook his head. “Not really. Everyone knows it’s hard to skate when you have something else on your mind… especially something so upsetting,” 

“Hmm,” Victor hummed in response. 

There was another pause. 

“Yakov was the one who rescued me,” Victor finally said. “When I was thirteen… My father when too far, and Yakov found out everything. We tried to go to court, but there wasn’t enough evidence. Yakov still offered me a home though… A way to escape,” 

Yuri ran his hand through Victor’s hair. 

“It wasn’t so bad when I was younger. My mother protected me a lot… though looking back on it, she was a victim herself. Rochester would get angry at lots of small things, like if the house wasn’t tidy, if my mum was late home from work, if I was late home from school…” Victor slowly explained. “I do believe he loved her though, in a twisted, creepy, obsessive kind of way. That’s probably what made it so bad… after she left. I look a lot like her see… and that made Rochester mad,” 

Yuri hated this. He hated how calmly Victor talked about it, as if it was normal for parents to be so messed up. He hated Rochester and felt a deep anger against him. He hated how Yakov hadn’t found out sooner. He just hated the fact that his lovely pure sweet Victor had had to go through that. 

“Growing my hair long didn’t help either. Rochester said it made me look gay… I guess he was right about one thing?” Victor tried to crack a smile, but Yuri couldn’t find it in himself to return it. Instead, he just gave Victor a gentle squeeze. 

“He didn’t… He wasn’t awful. He just… yelled a lot. And only sometimes hit me. He still let me go skating every day after school,” Victor said. 

Yuri raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. 

Victor sighed and turned his head onto Yuri’s shoulder. “It’s just hard. He used to say that if I ever told anything to anyone, he would… he would “teach me a lesson”. Kill them, and then me. I guess some habits are hard to break,” 

“That’s awful,” Yuri mumbled, tears welling up in his own eyes. 

After that, it was like a dam broke. Victor wasn’t so apprehensive about telling Yuri what had happened. He told him about how scared of going home after practice he used to be… but how scared of being late he was at the same time. He explained how he used to hide under his bed if he was crying so that Rochester wouldn’t find out. He told Yuri of when he was eight Rochester threw away all of his toys, saying that he was too old for them. He explained how he spent as much time as he possibly could at the rink because it meant he wasn’t at home. He admitted that he still got frightened of people yelling at him. 

And Yuri was heartbroken, but it started to make sense. He remembered how awful Victor had been at comforting him when they first met; it made more sense if Victor had never experienced that type of comfort. Also, how much Victor loved hugs. The only person who had hugged him as a child was his mother, so for Victor hugs meant safety. 

“What… what should I do?” Victor asked at the end. “I don’t want to see anyone get hurt because if I admit what happened to the court…” 

“No one will get hurt,” Yuri replied. “And I think that it’s important he gets imprisoned for what he did,” 

Victor nodded. “I… you are right.” Then he thought for a moment. “Yuri… would you, come with me? I don’t want to face this alone…” 

Yuri nodded. “Of course, anything you need. How about this? We can ask Yakov for the day off, that way, when it’s over you won’t be obliged to do anything else. We can relax or do whatever you need?” 

Victor nodded. “I would like that,” 

...

As it turned out, Yakov didn’t need telling. The court had requested that he bear witness as well. 

Yuri didn’t think that he had ever seen Yakov so angry when he mentioned Rochester though. The phrase “I’ll kill that man if he even looks at one of my skaters again,” definitely reinforced that thought.


End file.
